British Grand Prix stopped after Raikkonen crash

A heavy crash for Kimi Raikkonen forced the stoppage of the British Grand Prix on the first lap.

The Ferrari driver suffered a frontal impact with the barrier at the bridge on the Brooklands straight.

He had run wide at the preceding corner and rejoined the track further down the Wellington straight. Raikkonen lost control of his car and spun sideways into the barrier.

The Ferrari driver was hit by Felipe Massa who was unsighted behind Kamui Kobayashi’s Caterham. The Williams driver spunt his car as he tried to avoid Raikkonen.

Kobayshi said: “I saw Kimi make contact, then start coming back across the track. To the right was just debris so i went left but he kept coming and the tarmac started running out so I could only go onto the grass.”

“I was very very close to the barrier and the car was bouncing all over the place, but I just made it through.”

After the crash Raikkonen asked if Massa was alright. The Williams driver has able to driver his car back to the pits.

The race was red-flagged but Raikkonen swiftly climbed out of his car, which sustained heavy damage at the front and rear.

The barrier he hit also sustained heavy damage, and the race was suspended while marshals replaced the damaged panels.

Nodding my head in agreement @sebsronnie. Someone, who shall remain nameless, was interviewed after the race and said Massa locked up. That comment was either uninformed or uncharitable. Massa didn’t “lock up” imho; he took immediate – and skilful – action to avoid t-boning Kimi’s car.

Lauda took this opportunity to rant on F1 being over-regulated, and voiced his dislike for waiting an hour to replace the barrier. Yes F1 is way too tightly regulated (and 2015 isn’t doing it any favours), but replacing the barrier is very important for safety.

Niki was talking how the chance of another driver hitting that spot was low. He, among all people, should know about low chances; who would guess the fastest car would break suspension, plunge head on into a wall, catch on fire, on the worst possible circuit in the world.

Lauda was quite right, and I’m very glad that it was on live TV. Jordan’s answer (legal liability) was weak at best. The chances of anyone else hitting that exact point on the armco was within a gnat’s hair of zero, and delaying the start for an hour was just plain wrong for numerous reasons.

Safety has come a long way over the years (not a bad thing in itself) but today’s fiasco just proves that the pendulum has swung too far. When I was a youngster, we used to say “That driver is crazy — he’ll kill himself before the end of the season”; now we just say “he’ll get a five place grid penalty if he’s more than 70% responsible.”

There was not a big ditch. There is a transition between grass and track which is the same at practically every track that has a grass area. It was Kimis fault for rejoining after the run off ended. He should be given a 5 place penalty for rejoining dangerously.

For a start if it was a ditch I would imagine the car would have disintegrated before it even reached the track. Also there is always going to be some sort of bump between grass and track it is just not possible to make all the edges perfect as so many things can affect the grass area. It is not something unique to Silverstone. It is not as if cars are expected to use the area, as such the area just before the incident has AstroTurf in order to make it safe for cars to rejoin the track. Kimi simply should not have been joining the track at full speed at that point. He should have slowed down as even if he had no lost control it was still dangerous to fly back on to the track.

I believe Silverstone and the FIA are partly to blame on this and I can’t believe something hasn’t been said. Years ago if a driver went off the track they would be on grass or in the gravel, if they were able to keep the car going they would be rejoining the track at a low speed. The dip in the grass, or the drop beyond the curb would not be such a problem a low speed. Now some bright spark thinks it’s a good idea to have tarmac run offs everywhere. By doing that I believe the circuit then has the responsibility to ensure the driver can rejoin the circuit at a higher speed. How can we expect any driver to slow down to 20mph when they are on a smooth tarmac runoff. I don’t think Kimi should be penalized, he rejoined in a decent gap.

Raikkonen trying far too hard to push through the backmarkers too early before he had heat in his tyres. A silly immature mistake from a driver who should be more composed. Inevitably his petulance caused the tyres to let go, overshoot, and finally spin it around on the track. The resulting chaos on the track was unaviodable. My greatest respect to Max and Felipe for avoiding what could have been tragic incidents. The reactions of Felipe as his view cleared to see a stricken Ferrari in front of him was amazing. Hats off to to the marshals for a superb job of rebuilding the armco and clearing the track.